Holistic care for transplant survivors

[liza_moon]

I have a friend who is a transplant survivor, post HepC.  His transplant is coming to the end of it's 'life' and he is looking at another transplant possibly.  However he now has found he has Epstein Barre and Cytomegalovirus - which need to be in check before he can get the transplant.  Because of the complexity of being a transplant survivor, he has been opposed to any alternative/supplemental approaches.  Any suggestions for things he can do to optimize his health?

As a side bar - I've seen a ten year remission from Hep C after doing a year of interferon treatments.  I was fortunate that I tolerated the interferon fairly well.  I was told several years back that after a period of being undetectable, i'm considered cured.  I was skeptical of this, and continued checking viral loads annually.  I just saw another GI who confirmed that it is common belief that after a sustained period of being undetectable, there is practically no possibility of a recurrance.  I mentioned what I'd heard the virus hides in other parts of the body (my transplant friend had a post transplant recurrance -this was the explanation they gave him - though his transplant was long enough ago that testing may not have been optimal on the donor liver).  The doc I saw recently denied the theory about the virus hiding to come back later. ???  The supplemental stuff I did while doing the interferon included milk thistle, accupunture, chiropractic, meditation - you name it, I tried anything I could to aid my body in healing.  Who knows what helped - but I feel truly blessed. I offer this as hope 2 others

[jboyhk]

If what you are saying is true, then alot of people in the medical community would be very interested.

I think maybe their are pieces missing or misinterpreted in that situation.

[new-sojourn]

I agree w/you.  i'm 4 1/2 yrs svr-did 24 wks of interferon/riba-3 shots a wk.

I was end stage-having been infected in 1967 via transfusion.

Once I was dx. I 'refined' my life style.  Since the liver is the 2nd biggest organ-after the skin-and it couldn't do its job of filtering out toxins, I decided to be kind to my liver by severely limiting my exposures to toxins.

And to reduce inflamation.  and start rebuilding my liver.  So I too used all the tools available-as long as they were 'free' since I had no insurance.

I don't know if the holistic approached helped b/I too had an 'easy' time.

Being rid of the virus is only part of the healing process.